Bitcoin and Safety of Humanity...

[Mindey]

I have always been an advocate of personal freedom, and I like bitcoin a lot. However, imagine the following scenario:

1. Someone pays to scientists to design a "Time Bomb Human Virus" - a biological virus programmed to stay silent for years in human bodies, and activate itself at a particular pre-programmmed date (which technically could be achieved by designining a nanoscale virus shell to put a deadly virus in), and with anti-virus only for the people who had designed it.

2. All the mankind dies, except the group of people who had the antivirus.

How could we prevent this without governments, maybe there are technical ways in which we could prevent people using money for such kind of things? Anyhow, since we are now beginning to control our money, we have to wisen-up and think responsibly about its uses.

Just because we love freedom, doesn't make us bad guys. Any ideas how could bitcoin help us defend ourselves against their misuses?

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Edit: And, yes, I thought of something like ClearCoin, just to realize that this (unless it is obligatory and de-anonimizing) wouldn't work for prevention of such misuses.

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[Anonymous]

A man with enough money to invent the "Time Bomb Human Virus" doesn't need to worry about any petty governments.

When has the government been successful in preventing such a scenario? They fail all of the time.

Governments have never ensured human safety. If anything, they only ensure human destruction by destroying wealth.

[Nesetalis]

er... what? what does this have to do with bitcoin?

[kwukduck]

Yea, because it's totally impossible to pay a criminal/scientist or anyone else for that matter with anything else then bitcoins.

[MacFall]

Governments tend to concentrate wealth in the hands of people most willing to do violence on a mass scale. In a free world, such a problem is theoretically possible, but it is far less likely to arise than in a state-controlled world, where it happens constantly (albeit not on the scale you describe). We don't have to prove that our system is perfect; only that it is just a tiny bit better. And I think that it is actually a lot better. It takes power out of the hands of power-seekers and replaces it with... nothing.

[trentzb]

Are you advocating some form of control of the/a monetary supply in order to prevent control bad people from doing bad things and suggesting that the Bitcoin community be a part of it? I would be highly surprised and shocked if the Bitcoin community would have anything to do with such control. However, here are few other wonderful communities that will probably be receptive to your ideas:

www.imf.org
www.federalreserve.gov
www.bis.org

[benjamindees]

Terrorism has historically been limited by lack of means, but from now on it will only be limited by lack of motive.  The only way to prevent it is to remove the motive, not the means.  Inept, over-reaching governments only increase the motive for terrorism.

[kiba]

Terrorism has historically been limited by lack of means, but from now on it will only be limited by lack of motive.  The only way to prevent it is to remove the motive, not the means.  Inept, over-reaching governments only increase the motive for terrorism.

No. You just bomb the long security lines or shoot down people in malls. It's not about the mean, it's about the stupidity.

[ribuck]

Maximum freedom allows people a greater range of positive, fulfilling ways to live their lives. Minimum freedom leads to desperation, and more people do evil stuff.

Anyway, the original poster asked "How could we prevent this without governments?". I ask, how could we prevent this with governments?

[Mindey]

Maximum freedom allows people a greater range of positive, fulfilling ways to live their lives. Minimum freedom leads to desperation, and more people do evil stuff.

Anyway, the original poster asked "How could we prevent this without governments?". I ask, how could we prevent this with governments?

Although it may not be entirely clear weather governments' control, or people's fulfillment would lead to greater safety, but watching Surviving the Singularity by Paul Budnik, it seems that the diversity, which Bitcoin can bring about to our society, will bring more solutions to various problems that we may face than the governments and centralised way could ever address.

[torbank]

Personally I think the pentagon missing trillions are more of hazard.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Personally I think the pentagon missing trillions are more of hazard.

Quite. We have every reason to believe that these trillions were actually spent on secret weapons of mass destruction.

[caveden]

This is off-topic and should not be on this board.

Answering the OP, what makes you think government could protect us from such a thing?

I've seen people evoking the scenario of an apocalyptic meteor in order to defend the initiation of violence... they just ignore that no government can stop an apocalyptic meteor outside the realm of Hollywood. Your example is pretty much the same thing.